Kristen Wiig is a pro at making people laugh—but can she make them cry?

While her sense of humor served her well on NBC's Saturday Night Live and as the co-writer and star of Bridesmaids, the 40-year-old actress has a serious side, too. Does Wiig ever worry she's been typecast?

"It's not necessarily a bad thing," Wiig tells Elle of her success in the comedy world. "You have to have some sort of context for a person to register in your brain, and I was introduced to the world as a cast member of SNL. But I've always wanted to do dramatic stuff, to write and direct, do a lot of different things. Comedy is where my heart lies, but there's also something really satisfying about being able to step away with a small crew, become a character and get to know her for a few months at a time."

Whether she's starring in a comedy or a drama, Wiig wants to take more risks. She does just that in the movie Welcome to Me, co-starring James Marsden and Will Ferrell. Wiig plays a woman with borderline personality disorder who wins the lottery, stops taking her medication and starts a talk show. "I'd never read a character like that," she says. "I got to a scene where it read, 'She's fully naked,' and I remember thinking, 'If I do this movie, I have to do this scene, because it's really important to this script.'"

Wiig's full interview appears in the August 2014 issue of Elle, on newsstands July 22.